UN specialists say Israel ‘deliberately attacked and destroyed’ the Palestinian territory’s fundamental fertility centre.
Israel has carried out “genocidal acts” towards Palestinians by systematically destroying girls’s healthcare services throughout its war on Gaza and utilizing sexual violence as a conflict technique, United Nations specialists have mentioned.
On Thursday, the Geneva-based Unbiased Worldwide Fee of Inquiry mentioned in a brand new report that Israel “deliberately attacked and destroyed” Gaza’s fundamental fertility centre whereas concurrently blocking drugs for pregnancies, deliveries and neonatal care from coming into the enclave.
In its report, the fee discovered that Israeli authorities “have destroyed … the reproductive capability of Palestinians in Gaza as a bunch by means of the systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive healthcare”, it mentioned in an announcement.
It added that this amounted to “two classes of genocidal acts” throughout Israel’s offensive in Gaza, launched after the assaults by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023.
For its half, “Israel categorically rejects the unfounded allegations”, its mission in Geneva mentioned in an announcement.
Israel has additionally accused the fee, which was established in Could 2021, of advancing a “predetermined and biased political agenda … to incriminate the Israel Protection Forces”.
‘Warfare crime of wilful killing’
The report mentioned maternity hospitals and wards had been systematically destroyed in Gaza, together with the Al-Basma IVF Centre, the territory’s fundamental in-vitro fertility clinic.
It mentioned Al-Basma was deliberately shelled in December 2023, destroying about 4,000 embryos at a clinic that served 2,000-3,000 sufferers a month.
The fee discovered no credible proof that the constructing was used for navy functions.
It mentioned the destruction “was a measure meant to forestall births amongst Palestinians in Gaza, which is a genocidal act”.
The report got here after the fee carried out public hearings in Geneva on Tuesday and Wednesday, listening to from victims and witnesses of sexual violence.
It concluded that Israel had focused civilian girls and women instantly, “acts that represent the crime towards humanity of homicide and the conflict crime of wilful killing”.
The fee added that compelled public stripping and nudity, sexual harassment together with threats of rape, in addition to sexual assault, comprise a part of the Israeli forces’ “customary working procedures” in the direction of Palestinians.
